Invasion of the Mischief Makers
by beautybelle300256
Summary: Nova has been acting weird lately, and the guys try to figure out what's up. As expected, chaos ensues.
1. Chapter 1

This is the result of conversation with Flensted again *facepalm* It started out with Nova wearing some really heavy perfume and it just sort of morphed into this. Enjoy. And if you do particularly enjoy this, please leave line, I'd love to know your thoughts on it.

**Summary**: _"He that mischief hatcheth, mischief catcheth."--William Camden_

**Disclaimer**: Disclaimed.

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Sprx was afraid of Nova. Not in the usual sense where he was afraid she'd beat the last remaining threads of life out of him for doing or saying something stupid. No, there was something else that was sending off warnings in his head about her. She'd been all smiles and giggles for the past few days (which was disturbing in itself) and it was getting really hard to be around her due to the...perfume It was heady and you could _see _it swirling it around her in this mist of miasmic death. He was sure it was supposed to smell like flowers of some sort, but he couldn't get past looking at it much less chance to breath it in--which was unfortunate because she seemed pretty attached to him lately and he really didn't _want _to keep blowing her off, but it was awfully weirdly un-Nova-ish. He was getting kind of worried, honestly.

"Hey, uh, Gibson?" Sprx asked. He was hoping that the self-claimed "most observant" of the team would have picked up on some of the things going on and help shed some light on them.

"Yes?" Gibson briefly glanced at the pilot in his doorway before turning his attention back to the messy scrawl before him.

"Have you, uh, have you noticed anything _unusual _about Nova lately?" he asked nervously, glancing around as if making sure that they wouldn't be caught talking about such a topic.

Gibson set down his work and fully turned toward Sprx. He regarded him thoughtfully for a moment before beckoning him to take a seat within the room. Sprx complied, still skittishly looking around.

"So you've noticed as well," Gibson said. "I'm a little baffled myself, to be honest."

"So, you don't know what's going on with her either?" Sprx asked; he sounded desperate, relieved, and anxious all at once.

"I have several hypotheses, but I have not had any chance test any of them."

"What do you think it is?"

"She's been kidnapped by pod-people!" a new voice broke into the solemn conversation. Otto stood in the doorway with an anxious look that matched the other black-eyed simians.

"Pod-people? Really Otto--"

"It's possible," Sprx said. He was going over all the little behaviour shifts in his mind and they _did_ match up with everything he'd ever heard on the subject (from some documentary or sitcom or something he'd caught late at night one time). "Stranger things have happened."

"Wha--?"

"Well, she's been all...happy and smiling and laughing at my jokes and stuff," Sprx began listing all the evidence. "And I'm pretty sure she's been flirting back at me. That's not normal Nova behaviour."

"Yeah!" Otto chimed in. "And she hasn't been working out as much. She's only been in the training room twice today for a couple hours."

"Definitely not normal Nova behaviour."

"Not to mention the..."

"The heady bouquet?" Gibson offered when the other two fell silent in trying to describe the most disturbing change in the Team's number one girl.

"Yeah...What's with that anyway?" Sprx asked.

"She's trying to lure you in and then lay her eggs in you!" Otto said. He'd caught that same maybe-documentary that one time late at night.

"But, if that's not the real Nova, then where is she?" Gibson enquired.

The room went silent as all three males contemplated everything they'd been presented with and tried to come to a reasonable conclusion. "Reasonable" being completely subjective and leaning toward meaning "how are we going to capture this impostor and turn it into goo before it's plan can be completed?" in two of the three males.

"We have to set a trap!" Otto announced. He punctuated this statement by slamming his fist into his other hand and jumping up from the chair he had pulled up to the other two.

Sprx and Gibson looked at the green monkey in confusion, waiting for him to continue his logic.

"We have to get her--_it _before it can get us. We'll lure it someplace then spring on it and make it give us information of where the _real _Nova is."

"And how do you suggest we do that?" Gibson asked with a condescending air about him. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, as if expecting the answer to be a complete waste of time.

"We'll get Sprx to take it to the park. Me and you will have set up a net system that Sprx will take it to and get it to step in, then when it's all tied up we'll take it in for questioning."

"Why do _I _have to lure it?" Sprx asked.

"Because it obviously has chosen you to be it's egg-carrier. So it'll go with you more easily," Otto explained patiently as if he was talking to a small child.

"This is insane," Gibson said.

"Come on, Gibson, we have to do this for the sake of the Team."

"Can't we just ask her...?"

"No! Then it'll know what's going on and it'll have to move it's plan up and then we could _all _end up being egg sacks. Do you want to end up being a pod-persons egg sack?"

"No...I suppose not."

"Then it's settled. I'll start drawing up designs and Gibson, you go find the perfect location to spring the trap. Sprx, you go cosy up to it and try to get it to the park in about two hours."

"This had better be worth it..." Sprx mumbled on his way out the door. He was none to happy with his designated role as bait.

Two hours later however, and he was right on time, leading the supposed Nova impostor through the park. The day was lovely and warm with a light breeze to cool the inhabitants. Many such couples were strolling around on this nice day, just enjoying each other in beautiful weather. If they hadn't been robot monkeys, the two would have blended into the paired-off crowds quite easily as their hands were interlinked and smiles alighted their faces. Sprx's was of a more nervous variety but the yellow monkey didn't seem to notice or mind. Sprx lead the yellow monkey through a denser part of the scattered trees surrounding them that lead to a small closed-off clearing.

"Wow, how'd you find this place, Sprx?" Nova asked. She squeezed his hand to draw his attention back from wherever it kept wandering throughout their walk.

"Oh, you know...just wandering around one day." He was extremely distracted, hoping that he had gotten the location right and hoping that this whole thing wouldn't come back to backfire on them.

A _snap _of a twig alerted the two to the impending attack springing upon them.

"Get her!" Otto called out and tried to tackle Nova while Gibson stumbled out of the shrubbery surrounding them with his foot tangled in the branches. The ensuing chaos somehow lead to Sprx hanging upside down by his foot from the trap meant for Nova, and Gibson and Otto both completely pinned underneath Nova's strong grip and she glared down at them.

"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded in more normal 'no-nonsense' Nova voice.

"We're here to let you know that we know that you're not Nova and we want her back," Otto answered. His answer was somewhat skewed as he has face down in the dirt and kept having to spit out bits of grass and twigs.

"What?" Nova asked. She looked down at the two males in her grip in disbelief and utter confusion then up at Sprx who was gently swinging back and forth.

"He said he believes you're a pod-person," Gibson said. He could talk easier because his head was at and angle away from the dirt. "And that we're here to stop you."

"What the doodle are you talking about now?" she demanded again with a small shake to the two monkeys in her grip.

"You've been acting kind of weird lately," Sprx commented from up above. He was feeling a little light headed from all the blood rushing to his head.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you've been all...happy."

"So? Why shouldn't I be happy? We've defeated our biggest enemy once and for all, the universe is safe, and I'm in love."

"What about how little you've been training lately?" Otto accused.

"I don't really see any reason to. There hasn't been a major threat in a while and I've pretty much mastered as much as I can for now. I'm not going to _stop_. That'd be stupid."

"And the, uh, perfume?" Sprx asked. He flinched a little as he said the last word. From up above he was getting the full impact as it wafted upwards and that was making his head spin all the faster. He couldn't breath.

"JinMay gave me some. Why? You don't like it?" She sounded a little hurt but otherwise perfectly Nova-ish.

"No," was the unanimous response from the males around her.

"Fine, I won't wear it. Now, answer me this, who's idea was this crazy scheme?" Her voice had gotten progressively more menacing as she asked.

"Otto's," Sprx and Gibson immediately responded pointing toward the green monkey (who was still face down in the dirt) as best they could.

She looked down at the accused crossly who seemed to be immune to the stare (maybe it was because he couldn't see it) and gave off an air of defiance.

"We're going to have a nice long discussion, Otto, about how you deal with teammates and treat them, while I make up for all those lost training hours. You're going to be my partner." She unceremoniously tugged the green simian up and began marching him off toward the Robot. He walked along with his head held high but a subtle quake of fear in his stride.

The red and blue monkeys watched the two march off with a relieved and humiliated air about themselves.

"Uh, could you...?" Sprx finally asked. There were spots jumping around before him and he was pretty sure that they weren't actually there.

Gibson shot a little energy beam at the rope holding Sprx (causing him to fall gracelessly to the ground and land in a tumble of limbs) while rolling his eyes.

He walked off after Nova and Otto while mumbling about all the lost time he'd wasted with this whole useless undertaking.

Sprx laid there dazedly, staring up at the still perfectly clear blue sky and watching as the spots began to fade as he got more oxygen in his system. His one reoccurring thought was that she had never _denied _that she was a pod-person.


	2. Chapter 2

The exciting continuation is here! I still have no idea where this plot came from, but I'll take it. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed this story, it means a lot. I hope this chapter answers a few of your questions (and raises more).

**Disclaimer**: I still don't own any of this, nor am I making profit in anyway (except emotionally) from this story.

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Otto was worried. This wasn't an unusual occurrence, he worried about plenty of things on a regular basis (like whether or not his Quantum Jalapino Electronic Geoamplifier would disrupt the space/time continuum enough for reality to warp too much that it becomes cheese-less, or even if they had enough jawbreakers to last them through the month) but this time he was genuinely worried that something really, really bad was happening to his teammates.

The not-Nova was learning, it had already assessed that they knew that it knew that they knew it wasn't the _real _Nova, and was trying to make them think they were crazy for doubting it. They weren't crazy though--it had gone too soft at the end of the sparring session to be the _real _Nova (but he had to admit, before that it was doing a pretty good job, they must have really studied up before coming here). He was left to conclude that it was indeed still a pod-person. The question then became, what was it going to do now? Would it speed up its plans to replace them with pod-people and then use their real bodies as egg sacks? Or would it try to lull them back into a false sense of security?

He wasn't going to let it trick him again though. No matter how Nova-like it acted, he wasn't going to fall for its tricks.

He was shuffling along the hall wall, inching his way toward Sprx's room in an effort to re-group and re-strategize. The not-Nova was in there though. He was staying in the shadowed part of the hall and tried to keep his covert position until that impostor left.

"So..." Sprx intoned, dragging the syllable out.

"So." Nova was not as procrastinating.

Nova and Sprx were sitting in the pilots room, her with an annoyed and vengeful air, and he with a frightened and anticipatory one.

"What _exactly _were you thinking when you had Gibson and Otto attack me?" she asked. It was an on-going investigation, and so far she was _not _liking what she had found out.

"Well, I didn't _make _them attack you, it was all Otto's idea, really. We were all just really concerned about you because you've been acting kind of weird lately an--"

"I told you, I can be _happy_."

"I know, I know," the pilot quickly backpedaled. "I'm not saying you can't, I'm just saying that it's a little, uh, _different _than what we're used to. And you know how much we care about you, so we were brainstorming on what was going on--"

"Did it _never _occur to _any _of you that I was happy that Skeleton King is now and _forever _dead, the War is over, and we're all alive?"

"Well...no."

She gave him The Look. The Look basically indicated how stupid she thought he was and was usually followed by a swift beating of some kind. She punched him in the shoulder. Hard.

"Ow." Sprx rubbed his abused joint and looked poutingly at the monkey across from him.

"Well, you got your wish, Sparky. I am no longer happy."

"I didn't say we were trying to make you unhappy--"

"Then why did you try and attack me?"

"I didn't."

"You _knew _they were waiting there--_you lead me to them._ That's just as bad."

"I'm sorry, okay? I was just worried and then Otto came up with the pod-person theory and it sort of made sense and it's not like it'd be the weirdest thing that'd ever happened to us. I just got caught up in it all."

Nova glared at the red monkey some more as he coward in guilt.

"I really am sorry. It's just...weird to have you all happy to see me all the time and to _not _pound me into paste when I make some stupid comment. It's not _bad_, just not normal. I know you love me and everything, but it's still weird."

The glare didn't let up.

"How did you even _hear _about pod-people enough to think that I was one?"

"Oh, uh, some magazine article or documentary or sitcom or something, I think."

Nova gave a little growl of discontent and annoyance (which was actually kind of sexy, in Sprx's opinion, not that he'd _ever _tell her that (well, _maybe_, in the right place and if she seemed to be sort of in the mood to take it correctly)).

"Don't let it happen again," she warned. She leaned over and gave him a light kiss on the cheek before stalking out of his room to continue her interrogations.

Sprx watched her leave with a confused and dazed expression before sighing and simply titling this whole episode under the "Girls Are Crazy" category.

Otto peeked into his room a few minutes later; he was plastered against the wall and frantically searching the area for any more signs of "the enemy."

"Psst...Sprx! Hey, Sprx!" Otto whispered from the doorway.

"What?" the red monkey asked, never looking up from his search for...something, in the large mess that dominated the room.

"Did she get ya?"

"What?" Sprx paused momentarily to stared confusedly at his teammate for a moment.

"Did she get ya? She's a tricky one all right, almost had us fooled--but there is _no way_ that's Nova."

Sprx continued to gape at the green monkey in astonishment (at the level of sheer insanity he had reached). "You're crazy," he finally said and continued to rummage around his room.

"That can't be Nova," Otto continued. "She's far too nice and scary."

"That's pretty much what Nova _is_," Sprx retorted.

"Well yeah, but not to the level _it _is. It knows we're onto it now, so it's trying harder. But don't worry, it's not going to fool us again."

"Otto," Sprx sighed. "There is no pod-person. That really _is _Nova, she's just really happy because the War is over and life is good right now."

"No, that's what it _wants _you to think. The real Nova would never be happy without something to kick around."

"I'm pretty sure that's what she keeps me around for..."

"No! You see--Oh my stars," Otto suddenly gasped.

Sprx turned around to see what might have caught the mechanics attention and was confronted with the green monkey gaping at him.

"What?" Sprx asked.

"Y-you've been--you're--" Sprx never heard the end of the sentence. Otto turned and ran off before he ever answered the pilot, leaving his comrade in even more confusion than when the conversation had started.

"Now, what was I looking for?" Sprx asked himself. "Eh, I'll remember later."

Otto ran full speed toward Gibson's lab, trying to muffle his screeches as he went.

"Gibson!" Otto burst into the lab. He startled the scientist into knocking over a few chemicals he was standing next to and spilling them all over the counter.

"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear," Gibson muttered as he tried to wipe up the chemicals and save all the paper they were leaking on at the same time.

"Gibson, it's an emergency!" Otto yelled and began dancing around the blue monkey.

"What?" Gibson momentarily stopped his frantic cleaning and looked at the excited monkey.

"Sprx has been turned into one of _them_."

"What?" the blue monkey was even more baffled now.

"Sprx! He's been turned into a pod-person! He's not acting like Sprx!"

"Are you still on about this? Really Otto, this whole thing is exceedingly ridiculous and utterly impossible."

"It's true. He was just _cleaning his room_. And it was right after not-Nova left it. They've got him!"

"...While I admit that such a phenomenon is very unusual it doesn't mean that he is no longer Sprx. Perhaps he has had some sort of revelation in hygienics? Or Nova put him up to the task?"

"No! He's been taken and replaced with a pod-person!" Otto was becoming agitated now. He looked on the verge of tears, his face was red and he couldn't speak at normal volume.

"Otto, there is no such thing as a body snatcher or pod-person or anything of the like."

"But--" The lab exploded in a mist of dark grey before the argument could continue. Otto and Gibson stumbled out, hacking away the exhaust that had suddenly filled their lungs.

"Th-they're--they're try--trying ta--to ki--kill--us," Otto wheezed in between coughs. "Know--t-too--mu-much!"

The explosion had caused a stir among the other inhabitants of the Robot and sent them all searching for the origin of the noise. Antauri,Chiro, Nova, and Sprx all came racing into the Common Room and found the two monkeys still trying to clear their lungs out. They acted without command and pulled Gibson and Otto further away from the smoke storm emanating from the lab. Sprx hit the airlock vents which began sucking the toxic fumes out of the Robot.

"Are you all right?" Nova asked Otto; she leaned down and began rubbing his back in a comforting gesture.

Otto squirmed back away from her with a look of fear in his eyes.

"Otto?" Chiro asked. He tried the same tactic and got slightly better results of the green monkey just taking deep breathes in his rough wheeze. "You okay?"

Otto nodded then shook his head and refused to make eye contact with either Sprx or Nova.

"What happened?" Antauri demanded.

"D-don't know," Gibson said. His voice was rough and it severely hurt to talk.

"Know t-too much," Otto said.

The four healthy members of the Hyperforce looked at each other in confusion before shrugging and deciding they'd deal with it later. They had to take care of the two unfortunate smoke-filled monkeys at the moment.

Once everything was all taken care of, Gibson and Otto were prescribed bed rest and plenty of water as a recovery process.

Otto took his gratefully and passes out. He awoke a few hours later to the sound of conspiratorial whispering a little ways away from him. It frightened him more than the explosion had.

"What are we going to do now?" not-Nova said. "We've failed to annihilate the problem."

"We have to proceed ahead of schedule then," a voice that sounded like Sprx's replied.

"We'll just have to be more careful from now on. He could ruin everything."

"Don't worry about him," a new voice broke in--it sounded _almost _like Gibson's but only if the voice had been run through a wood chipper and then burned. It had to be the pod-person's _true _voice. "I'll keep him busy long enough that he won't even have time to think about interfering."

If his throat hadn't felt like sandpaper at the moment, Otto would have screamed and made a run for it. This was just too much. His friends were slowly being replaced by evil pod-versions of themselves. He _had _to put a stop to this. But who could he trust? What if they got to Antauri and Chiro before he could warn them? Worse, what if they had already gotten to Antauri and Chiro since he'd been put to sleep?

It was final then, he would just have to do this on his own.

He'd play along for awhile, but then, when they least expected it, he'd strike and show them that _no one_ messes with the Hyperforce on his watch.

He began to drift off once more and the voices faded into unintelligible murmurs, and few (evil) snickers.

"Do you think it'll work?" Sprx asked. He was having a hard time reminding himself _not _to burst into laughter at the situation.

"It has to," Gibson rasped. His throat felt much like Otto's (but he could never _never _even contemplate giving up speaking long enough, even to help his voice heal quicker).

"There's only one way we'll know for sure," Nova said. Her smile was of a special evil-not-Nova style as she thought about the Master Plan set before them. She too, allowed a few snickers to escape between her lips.

"He's smarter than he appears," a new voice broke into the conversation.

"Yes, but that doesn't mean he isn't a gullible sap at times, Antauri," Sprx said.

"We'll know for sure in a few hours, either way. Time to commence stage B."

Every monkey's smile in the room (save Otto's) turned to match evil-not-Nova's.


End file.
